5 mobile wallets in India that do more than just bill payments

Despite being at a nascent stage, Mobile wallets have managed to maintain a large user base in India because they offer an easy alternative to handle cash and credit/debit cards. They let you perform cashless transactions for the goods and services you purchase.

But what benefit they offer over the traditional online transaction model? Let’s see. You must have carried out various transactions over the internet and have a hard time remembering or entering your card credentials for the same. And many a times you would have jumped to step one due to a poor internet connection, which is the added dose of irritation. Besides this, your banks charge a sum of money for the transactions you carry on the internet. These are some issues which a mobile wallet tends to address.

Mobile wallets follow a semi-closed model in which users load money and make payments to the merchants that are in operational tie-ups with the mobile wallet service provider. You just need to load the money in the mobile wallet from your bank account and you are free from the hassle of entering your card credentials for every purchase you make.

Having said that, let’s check out some of the mobile wallets that can make your life convenient and make your smartphone a bit smarter.

paytm
This mobile wallet lets you bargain directly with sellers over chat. We tried and got 25% discount for an item!

Paytm is the most widely used mobile wallet in the country with over 25 million active wallets. The service allows consumers to buy mobile recharges, tickets, deals and shop across 18,000 merchants covering sectors such as fashion, electronics, holidays, hotels, etc. It is like a virtual market place with everything you need at one place and the option to pay right after you make a purchase. The platform is available across most of the popular mobile applications such as Bookmyshow, Uber, MakeMyTrip and FoodPanda, etc. as a preferred payment method. Paytm’s user interface resembles with an e-commerce application. You have the Account option to see your profile, orders, favorites, settings, etc., wallet-to check balance, add, and find deals at the bottom. Services such as Recharge and e-commerce categories are positioned at the top and on the side bar. Paytm offers payment through most of the nationalized and leading private banks. Besides all these features, one feature that is quite unique in Paytm is the Chat and Bargain. You can select an item and tap on bargain option, which will open a chat box where you can ask for a discount directly from the seller. We tried it and the seller offered us a 25% discount for an item.

Oxigen
This wallet lets you share money with friends and family over their preferred social media platforms.

Oxigen wallet is another widely used platform for online transactions. Unlike Paytm, which looks a bit cluttered, the user interface of Oxigen is quite simple to use. The main screen has all the options right in the centre in a list format. The recharge and bill payment option, which can be used to pay mobile bills, landline, DTH, Data card, electricity bills, etc., are given at the bottom. You can transfer money to a bank account by adding the beneficiary name and by selecting the bank. And you will find every bank in the list as Oxigen has tied up with all the existing banks in the country. What differentiates Oxigen wallet from Paytm and other platforms is the integration of social networks. With Oxigen, you can share money with your friends and family over their preferred social networks and messaging platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Google+, and Twitter. This is a nice feature considering the active users on social platforms.

MobiKwik
Pay your insurance premiums with this wallet.

Mobikwik features one of the best user interfaces in the mobile wallets but lacks in some important features. Unlike Paytm and Oxigen, there is no arrangement of scheduling your transactions and neither can you transfer money to a bank account.

But money transfer will soon be available in the application. However, you can transfer and ask for money from other Mobikwik users via e-mail or a message. If the other person is not using the Mobikwik, then the email and the message will ask them to install the app. Besides this, it can be used to recharge and pay bills for mobiles, DTH, data card, electricity and LPG gas (3 merchants till now). Another thing which we noticed in Mobikwik is the option to pay your insurance amount which we did not find in any other wallet.

Vodafone m paisa
Transfer money through IVR, but setting it up is a tedious process and also costs some money!

Vodone m Paisa is another mobile wallet which supports a variety of useful features. You can pay all your bills; recharge any prepaid mobile number, DTH, Data Cards, etc. Besides this, the application lets you transfer money to a bank account through IVR service. You need to dial *400# and follow the further steps to make the transaction. You can also send the money to a phone number and the person can withdraw the amount from the m paisa agents across the country. Vodafone has over 8,500+ m paisa agents across various cities. The other person needs to show the SMS and an ID proof to withdraw the cash.

However, we did not find any option to schedule our transactions and to check the transaction history. Moreover, the process to set up the m paisa account is quite old school. Vodafone customers need to visit an ‘M-Pesa’ agent outlet, fill up the form, submit identity, address proofs and deposit Rs.100 to set up the account.  Vodafone will deduct Rs. 75 as activation fee and the remaining will be credited as balance. The other mobile wallets don’t involve any such process and make things quite easy.

Freecharge
This one offers coupons and better deals for more number of stores than others.

As the name suggests, Freecharge is focused on bill payments, recharges with freebies and exciting coupons, which you earn while recharging or paying any bill amount through the application. These offers are better than those of Paytm and other mobile wallets. The application provides coupons for more number of stores and restaurants than any other mobile wallet available in the market. When you recharge/pay bills, you can select offers such as CCD, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, PVR discount coupons, which you can avail later. All these coupons can be accessed in My Deals option in the right menu bar of the application.

The application provides prepaid mobile recharge for all operators such as Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Aircel and many more. You can use your debit cards, credit cards or net banking to recharge. However, there is no transaction scheduler, no provisions to transfer money to a bank account or to a friend by any means and allows you to add a maximum of Rs. 3,000 to the Freecharge account.

Source: PCQuest